


corioli

by black_nata



Category: Coriolanus - Shakespeare
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 16:39:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2199171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/black_nata/pseuds/black_nata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How strange it was, looking down at this sleeping wolf, when once he would have slit the Volscian's throat at the chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	corioli

From the moment they breathed the same air, Caius Martius knew he would die in this Volscian's hands, or soak the supple leather of his vest in the other's red rust. Or, if by some pitiless jest, Mars himself should strike them both at once, and with one careless blow send yielding flesh laid flat upon the dirt, then still, their fates entwined, would only lead grimly to the dark beyond.  
  
This Caius Martius always knew. And the Volscian, meeting his gaze time and time again on the field of war, seemed to know this, too.  
  
"Is this the day?" he grinned once. His face was a strange crimson mangle, stark against his white teeth. He seemed as though a wolf in heat. "What say you, Roman? Is this the day we die?"  
  
Martius thought so. The reply, though now forgotten, came bursting out amid a stream of curses that the Volscian wolf seemed more to relish than abhor. They fought hand to hand that day, their weapons lying useless and forgotten in the wet earth. For hours, it seemed, they struggled, equally matched, until the horns sounded retreat from both encampments to put them all at rest.  
  
The wolf growled at him as they parted, and then whimpered. Martius would have missed the sound in the tumult, but by fate's cruel twist, he heard, and felt its echo long after he had made his way back to the comforts of Rome. It seemed as though the sound had found its way beneath his skin and laid there, pliant, waiting, until in dreams it rose to haunt him.  
  
"Husband. Drink."  
  
She would often find him like this. If once she had thought these dreams to be nightmares, now she no longer had such hope. His thighs were slick. The water felt too cold as she held it to his lips. He breathed in and shivered.  
  
"Wife, I—" but he was shushed. A kiss too gentle was pressed to his cheek, a thin cover to his form. She lay to her side and slept.  
  
  
  
  
—

  
  
  
In Corioli, Martius decided, he would breathe his last.  
  
His army spent, his soldiers cowering, facing that race of wolves alone was certain death. He cared not. Rome had reaped enough in his name, and from him, and with his line secured in wife and child, the end seemed as though a cool river at the edge of a bone-pale desert. And so he lunged at the Volscians.  
  
But the gods, it appeared, still lusted for his shame. Not a single Volscian blade found its mark. Arrows fell like drops of dew. And Aufidius, the grinning wolf, had looked almost frightened at the sight of him, yet still Martius felt the low rumble of his laughter as he choked him.  
  
In banishment, he dreamt of that day. Dreamt of better marksmen, better fighters. Wolves scattered all about him like the very walls of Corioli, strong and proud. In this dream, he sank to the dirt and bled, untouched, as the wolves stared. Somehow, he still woke with his thighs slick.  


  
  
—

  
  
  
Aufidius was a cruel host. Cruel, perhaps, in his naivety, or in his mockery —Martius was unsure—, but mostly in his gifts, which he so thoughtlessly and generously gave. It was a Volscian custom, Martius discovered, for the host to bathe the guest in lavish gifts and firm embraces. And here, here in this den of wolves, where Martius had hoped to feel the kiss of a Volscian blade at last, he instead felt the kiss of a Volscian tyrant.  
  
The gods would make sport of his torment, still.  
  
He shed his Roman gold for silver, his leopard's skin for wolf pelt. Daily this pack would drench him in wine, nightly in scented oils so rich that his nightmares seemed almost alive. The Volscian grinned at him in the morn, and asked lewdly which young maiden had drawn those pleasured moans from him the night before.  
  
"No one," he said.  
  
"Mayhaps I, too, should spend a night with this 'No One'," the wolf grinned. Servants and soldiers roared in delight. "But look how pale he grows! Come, Martius, I jest. 'No One' is still yet yours to keep."  
  
More wine and oils. Sweet meat in red mountains, all the while gentle hymns swayed the Volscians to a half-slumber. Pleasures unfit for a warrior. Cruel Aufidius. Perhaps if he knew the truth of it, he would not have been so quick to bring him to his house.  
  
"Say, Coriolanus, had you not a wife in Rome?" the Volscian drawled. He was well in his cups. Martius steadied himself for the coming rage, and then "How quickly has 'No One' taken her place!"  
  
Laughter. The rock to his turbulent sea, Virgilia, that fixed point, made sport at his expanse. Have the gods no pity? To be thrown so pitilessly from city to city, to be mocked and trod on? Yet Martius would not buckle. "What interest have you in my nightly affairs, good Aufidius? You speak as though you have a mind to join."  
  
It had been meant as an insult. But the chamber roared and trembled with renewed vigour, and in its midst the Volscian wolf bared a grin so sharp it seemed to cut his very face before he kissed him. The jolt of it ran down his spine and curled his toes. Martius hoped the Volscians would blame his blush on the rough scrape of Aufidius' beard, or else his warrior's reputation might fall to further ruin.  
  
In days to come he found every jest challenged like so, every small remark met with equal force. Martius knew not why he took part in it. He had never been a man of words before this, yet it seemed that with the promise of Aufidius' response, and with perhaps the aid of Volscian wine, Martius had grown too bold.  
  
  
  
  
—

  
  
  
  
"Come, Martius. Take up your sword. I fear you grow soft in your exile."  
  
That is how it began. With Apollo burning hot above their heads, Martius had taken up his Roman steel and swiped a cut so clean that Mars himself might have filled with envy. White sand turned red. But no sound fell past Aufidius' lips.  
  
"Cruel boy," a servant woman spat. In other times, he would have been quick to punish insolence, but this had been the woman that once gave Aufidius her breast and milk. She bore something of Volumnia in her, he saw, and so was gentle with her. "Here, pick him up."  
  
They carried him inside. A slave fetched water, balm, wine. They peeled his tunic off with care and cast it to the fire, and with that flame they burned the wound as Aufidius writhed. Martius swallowed.  
  
"There," the old woman scolded. "Make no more of this play. Enough scars have you given each other."  
  
Martius stood there after they went, silent in the half-light. How strange it was, looking down at this sleeping wolf, when once he would have slit the Volscian's throat at the chance. Yet the man had embraced him, kissed him, given him warmth from his hearth and bared no more his snarling jaw to Coriolanus.  
  
Strange fate. Martius brought a hand softly to the stained linen wrapped around the wolf's chest. It painted his fingers red. Aufidius let out a small sound in his sleep, like a whimper. Martius recoiled.  
  
The dusk he spent staring listless at the walls. He thought of his mother, his wife, his son. He thought of all the arrows in Corioli that should have found their mark, and of the tyrant wolf lying wounded not so far away. The thought of it should not have given Martius so much pleasure.  
  
Sleep did not come that night. Food and wine he rejected. Slaves he turned away. And in the small hours, as he took himself in hand, he swore he heard a wolf's whimper outside the ashen doors.  
  
  
  
  
—  
  
  
  
  
For days they heard Rome's emissaries speak, and for days they sent them back whence they came. Aufidius had grown so weary of it that he offered his seat to Coriolanus. If he had noticed the ease with which the Volscians accepted this, Martius thought, Aufidius behaved as though he did not.  
  
His attentions were elsewhere. Aufidius seemed to take great pleasure in completing even the smallest request for him, in showing Martius the power he held over Antium. "Does this please you, friend?" he would offer, and at Martius' simple nod, he grinned as though Venus herself had placed a warm summer's kiss to his flushed cheek.  
  
Like a dog the Volscian waited for requests, and like a dog he placed the files at Martius' feet and waited for approval. Martius found it hard to choose between the loyal dog and the fierce wolf. Both he loved and hated, and both loved and hated him in turn.  
  
The troops, too, cared more for Martius than his flock in Rome. The slaves, eager to serve, followed him like shadows until, at his bidding, scattered away.  
  
"They have taken a shine to you, Roman," the Volscian generals would chuckle. "They love you more than him who feeds and clothes them."  
  
"Halt your tongues, fiends. I will not have Tullus humbled under his own roof," and at that the Volscians shuddered. He felt a hand on his nape a moment later, and turned to find Aufidius there, evidently pleased, as his generals were dismissed.  
  
"Like Jupiter you rage and thunder," he laughed. Fat drops of red fell from his eyes that he wiped at with the back of his palm. His armor carried dirt and mud. "Put your maps away, Martius, and come with me. I cannot train these young troops by myself."  
  
He followed.  
  
The soldiers liked him less afterward. He was rough with them, and the generous cuts and bruises he dealt were more fit for war than playful scuffle. Aufidius laughed and dragged him away to watch. "Perhaps they need a softer hand," he said, and called his oldest men to lead the young to the fields.  
  
They lingered there awhile, watching the soldiers kick at the sand as they went. A quiet calm fell in their absence.  
  
"'Tis true," Aufidius spoke first.  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"They like you more," he grinned at Martius' discomfort. "They do. I like you more myself."  
  
With another jest at the tip of his tongue, Martius turned. Then there were warm lips against his own. He jolted. The wolf called out to him, but like a frightened beast at the sight of fire, he tore away.  
  
Tullus grasped his wrist. "Why do you cower?" he snarled. "Why do you cry my name at night yet flinch at my touch? Speak." He tugged at Martius with all the strength of a warrior and pressed them together.  
  
Martius startled, but would not speak.  
  
"Caius Martius Coriolanus. The lion of Rome. Laid low by a kiss." Aufidius laughed. At that, Martius lashed. Grasping the man by the hair and, like a panther, growling as he pulled Aufidius to the dirt, he striked at him with the back of his palm.  
  
"Measureless liar," he spat. He cut the Volscian's breath with one firm hand around his throat. Aufidius writhed and kicked. By some strange perversion, this felt sweeter than the kiss. Having the wolf's life in his two hands, watching him snap and bite at the air, and still, even now, laugh. Martius felt the man's desire pressed hotly against his thigh.  
  
Abruptly, he let go. As Tullus wheezed and whimpered, Martius rolled them under the palm trees, behind the canopy, where searching eyes would not see. Then, he pressed them together again.  
  
"Martius, Martius..." the Volscian grinned. Quietly, he grasped at the hardness between Martius' thighs and tore at their belts with haste. Hips stuttered. Limbs failed. It was over before it had even begun. Tullus dug his claws in as he came and, like the wolf he was, bit at Martius' lips until they bled.  
  
  
  
  
—  
  
  
  
  
Again he dreamt of Corioles.  
  
Merciless these visions were, so sweet and ardent their violence that Martius hoped that he had died in those fields, and this here life was but a nightmare, a godly test, before the end.  
  
Yet each time he woke. Each time he rose to find himself in exile, and each time he sought solace at the taloned fists of Aufidius. The Volscian always smiled at the sight of him in the early morn. As his teeth were painted red with Martius' blood, his grin split wider.  
  
"Is this the day, Roman?"  
  
Martius had almost forgotten. Roughly, he mounted Tullus and, without permit or preamble, took the man deep inside. His reply, as always, was a curse in a panther's voice. Aufidius took hold of his hips and thrust. There was a strange shimmer in his eyes that Martius almost mistook for tears.  
  
Perhaps they were. Oil-slick fingers tangled with his, prodded at the peaks of his breast, at his pulse. Sometimes they entered his mouth, and Martius bit at them until the Volscian cried out.  
  
He watched Tullus tremble as he rode him. Then, as it ended, Martius felt the rough scrape of Aufidius' beard on his thighs, the heat of his mouth, and listened to the man's content purr.  
  
And again he dreamt of Corioles.  
  
  
  
  
—  
  
  
  
  
In widow's black, she came, a living storm, and in her path Martius bowed and shivered like gentle lace stretched taut in the wind.  
  
She alone carried Rome itself on her old shoulders. Bent, yet more proud than any god, she asked for peace, and peace she received. How can a son refuse the very womb that bore him?  
  
He smiled, and wiping the tears from his eyes, she returned it. Her eyes shone for a moment. But suddenly her joy vanished. Volumnia had doomed her only son. Her Coriolanus. Her very heart. She seemed in ruins as the guards led her away, Virgilia clinging to her side, distraught. Yet still he smiled.  
  
"Cut me to pieces, Volsces."  
  
Corioli. That black heaven. Martius hoped these Volscian blades would not fail a second time. The wolf held him spread above his gaping jaw and bore his hateful, loving eyes in Martius' face before his sergeant tore him open.  
  
From the moment they breathed the same air, Caius Martius knew he would die in this Volscian's hands. He watched the life pour out and slip, red and vibrant, through Aufidius' lips, and into his very core.  
  
Old legends spoke of warriors who consumed their strongest foes to grow in power. Martius almost wished for a blade of his own to return the honor paid. But then all thought began to fade. Wind howled from afar. For a moment, he was falling. Then Corioli stood tall before him.  
  
He took up his sword and sat at the gates, waiting. Whether in an hour's time or in a hundred years, the Volscian wolf would one day come to find him.

 


End file.
